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Ghoul (3)

Seminal 80's Japanese punk band, fronted by the one handed, raspy-voiced, fan-punching legend Masami, who passed on young (like many of his contemporaries) in the early 90's, apparently of liver failure brought on by excessive love of the drink. The original Ghoul broke up in '85, as there's the official VHS entitled "Last Gig" out on ACC video label. The band got back together as "Ghoul II" with a different line-up in the late '86 (or possibly in the early '87), changed the name to "Sqwad" (originally called Masami with Sqwad) sometime during the summer of '88, either right before or after they played the "Complete Death" show at the Toshima Public Hall in Tokyo on July 17th '88, then broke up and got back together again as "Ghoul III" in '89 with just a slightly different line-up than "Ghoul II" and pretty much remained active until Masami puked the blood on the stage and went into a coma afterwards in the early '90s. "Ghoul II" and "Ghoul III" - that's exactly how Masami called themselves when they got reformed twice and those names were often mentioned in the interviews, magazine articles and that's how they were usually listed in the gig flyers as well. As most of the serious fans probably noticed, they're credited as "Sqwad (ex-Ghoul)" on the "Complete Death Live" VHS tape (released on January 1st '89), however, in the flyers for this show they were still listed as "Ghoul II". So, probably they changed the name to "Sqwad" right before this show or after, but sometime before the VHS came out. Later, they played as "Sqwad" during the year of '89, released 7" flexi on Slice Records and broke up before the mid '89 and got back together again later the same year (before the summer). The Ghoul tracks you find on the "Game Of Death" compilation LP (which was released in July '89) are the only recorded material by "Ghoul III", although they're simply credited as "Ghoul" on this release.